War and Wisdom
by Selonianth
Summary: Catapulted through the dimensions and barely alive Shepard is captured by the Alliance and taken to The Academy, unable to break her and unable to analyze her, she's stuck... till one Reader and her brother attempt their own little escape. Rating may increase later.


The funny thing about being from a different dimension, Artemis Shepard mused, must be that no one knows when you get captured by some twisted black ops program and tortured. Not that it would've helped much judging by the others she heard in through her door, particularly since they'd gotten bored with her. They could tell what gave her the biotic abilities wasn't some weird genetic quirk but any attempt to induce it in others failed as they were unable to synthesize the Eezo her very home had practically been bathed in.

Not that she was up to helping them understand that in order for biotic abilities to be natural; and not induced in mind-bogglingly risky surgeries and experiments that far, far more often than not would, even performed perfectly, kill or mentally cripple those who were the subject; eezo had to be built up in the system at such a painfully slow, to a military program, rate since very nearly birth through food ingestion and breathing. It had to essentially, become part of the very building blocks you were made of.

Of course, this just meant that they had spent a good chunk of time trying their damndest to brainwash her with chemicals and pain but whatever Cerberus had done that brought her back from the dead, that had kept her alive when the Citadel's energy had opened a dimensional rift and hurled her through a planet's atmosphere, for the second damn time, on the other side, had also made her apparently pretty damn close to immortal. And oh how they had tried.

Turns out that, much like Cerberus, if experiments failed the only recourse they could see was to try to liquidate the assets involved. Whatever Miranda had done had rendered much of her skeleton all but bulletproof against the weaponry used in this dimension, including her skull. With chemicals, bullets, and even starvation out they often left her just like she was now, stuck in her cell with an intravenous drip of a cocktail they found that did at least manage to suppress her biotics as well as a mild paralytic that kept her from struggling… too hard anyway.

It was normally enough, given her emotional state, to keep her in her chains till they thought of a new idea to try to finish her off. To be honest, she almost wanted them to succeed. With no hope of returning home, this universe couldn't hope to match whatever about the Citadel had sent her here that she could yet see, or even genuine hope of escape without assistance she almost wanted to die, if only to see Liara again when her beautiful bondmate finally succumbed to age as even Asari did in time. Almost.

Opposite the part of her that was mourning her lost love was the part of her that had existed before Liara, the part that had survived the slaughter of Mindoir, that had ascended to the rank and position of N7 so young, that had led the slaughter of Torfan. That part of her was spoiling for a fight. It was the part of her that knew not the definition of 'give up', that would fight and defeat any obstacle in the way given any way at all of doing so.

It was that part of her that came alert when the alarm klaxon sounded. Somehow she knew this would be possibly her only chance. Leaning her head toward the IV as much as she could given the paralytic component she tried to pull it into her mouth and out of her arm but it was just out of her reach. That failed she focused as hard as she could, looking for the well of biotic power normally kept just out of reach.

Out of reach of a normal attempt, and certainly out of reach for a true flex of biotics but not out of reach enough to stop the barest of blue flickers from illuminating her body. Another attempt and the flicker was more intense. Another and it was more centralized on her arm. Another and the needle moved, slowly but inevitably it dropped from her arm allowing the modifications made by Cerberus to finally make headway against both the biotic suppressant and the paralytic, and headway was made fast. Mere moments since the needle dropped from her arm a quick flex of her long suppressed biotic power ripped apart her restraints and shattered the 'bed' she was strapped too.

A moment later she was crossing the room and slamming a biotically empowered shoulder into the door, knocking it off the hinges with such force it cratered the opposite wall. Just to the right of the door's path Artemis found something that confused her greatly. A girl, wire thin, and a clear fellow prisoner, with a smile ten miles wide as she stared into Artemis' eyes.

Artemis was broken from the moment by a smooth faced boy in the uniform of one of the 'Doctors' here, no one with that much innocence still shining in his eyes could be called a man, ran up to the girl and started pulling at her hand. "River! We have to go, they'll be here any moment."

If it wasn't for River's surprisingly calm turn toward him Artemis would have done her best to defend the girl, fortunately for him River smiled, "It's ok Simon. A goddess is here to protect us now." and without another word to either Artemis or Simon turned to walk down the hallway in the direction Simon had been pulling.

Confused, but willing to believe for the moment that he was apparently here to rescue the girl, Artemis shrugged at his own confused stare and trot after her, ignoring the way her own gown moved as River walked up to a glass window that Simon hurriedly put some kind of explosive paste on just in time for what appeared to be their escape route's appearance.

For the first time in an uncountable amount of time, just before they made their way up into the cargo bay of the ship that had provided their escape route, Artemis saw sunlight.

Pushing away the sadness that ached as the sun was hidden from her sight again as the cargo bay closed tight and they accelerated away Artemis accepted the clothes someone rushed to grab for her, being an unexpected guest someone had to actually give her some of their own spares. Smiling at the woman who handed her the first things that constituted actual clothing in a long time she went behind the divider they'd set up, more for their sakes than hers considering they seemed to have an entirely different set of sensibilities than you tended to acquire on a military ship the size of the Normandy, and started putting them on.

A tight sleeveless tank top and pants later she left the relative solitude of the changing area to Simon trying to talk River into something that the paperthin girl wasn't having any of. Then Artemis saw him trying to ease a needle out of the uniform he'd been wearing and in a flicker of biotics crossed the distance to catch his wrist, startling everyone in the hangar, except River for some reason, causing most of them to draw whatever firearm they happened to have to point in her direction, "Where I come from, someone tries to pull a needle when the person they're talking to doesn't agree with them it tends to be for less than kind reasons. Much less the place we just left, so if you want this wrist to function in a minute, you might want to start explaining."

Simon took a good look at Artemis now that she was out of her 'patient' robes and she was amused to see him gulp when he realized the person who'd left with him and River wasn't exactly in the same shape as his sister. Either that or the gulp was from the 'threatening' grip on his wrist, not that he needed to know she'd probably just shatter the syringe unless he did something truly stupid, either way his lips couldn't seem to start up fast enough, "It's just a sedative. The Alliance will be looking for her a lot harder than they'll be looking for me."

One of the others in the bay took a step forward, his heavy boot rattling the metal under his feet enough to draw attention to him which, when Artemis' head turned his direction, seemed to be the intention as he smiled with his hands raised and empty. "The plan was to hide her in a cryosleep container disguised as a goods crate until safely out on the outer rim where there would be less Alliance attention. I'm afraid we didn't have you in mind for our plan Miss…"

Artemis regarded him for a moment, the man wasn't the most kindly looking man but what roughness was there was there from hard work rather than any sense of callousness or malice. Giving Simon one more look of warning she released his wrist and responded, "Shepard, Artemis Shepard."

The man gestured to her right arm, where tattoos of her old military life still stood, an N7 logo flanked . "Those look like military tattoos, not ones I've ever seen on a purplebelly, not a browncoat either though. And that blue… flicker you used to cross the cargo bay, ain't never seen nothin like that neither. Why don't you tell me a little about yourself?"

Frowning Artemis looked at him for a moment, still ignoring the guns pointed her direction. Barriers, unlike kinetic shielding, could block projectiles from even old earth ballistic weaponry if they wanted to. "I'm not from around here. Not sure how I got here, but I was badly hurt when they found me," no one asked who they was. It was pretty apparent to everyone in the bay. "They tried to figure out how my abilities work, tried to replicate them, and when that failed they tried to weaponize me myself. Something, thankfully, far less effective on me than it was on… certain unfortunate others."

Simon instantly understood the last sentence likely referred to his sister and, though he seemed more inclined to try to hit Artemis, glanced at her worriedly for a moment while the girl idly danced in place.

The man, probably the captain in honesty, nodded sadly, "Our information told us as much about young Miss Tam. It failed to note much of anything about you. Though, in honesty, nothing in the information we had about the facility included you at all. Which does, admittedly, raise the question of… why?"

Artemis shrugged, "Best guess? Someone was covering their ass. I didn't get much of an impression that failure is… tolerated too well."

The captain nodded as a small smile appeared, "Alright. I believe you. Hm…" He paused in thought turning to one of the crew, "Rus, get Mr U on the line, need a full workup, including implanting records so she don't trigger passive scans and any testing comes up nice and kosher."

Artemis blinked in subdued shock, "That… that can't be cheap."

The captain shook his head, "It ain't, but you'll pay me back. In fact, the pay back is nice and simple, though incredibly dangerous. Miss Tam there, she's your ward," Simon's head whipped around from his concerned looks at his daughter to looking back at Artemis. The captain didn't stop talking, "Anything tries to harm a hair on her head, or god forbid return her to those… individuals, you take them down like the fist of an angry god."

Artemis glanced back to River, who had by this point danced her way to just behind and to the left of the former Spectre, which she somehow felt was deliberate but the waif-like girl didn't seem to acknowledge anything around her, even as she continued to look around and dance without stumbling. Looking back to the captain Artemis nodded, a clenched fist glowing blue as she maintained a super low intensity warp for a second.

"Deal."


End file.
